YouTube's latest initiative aims to foster educational content

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Every day, millions of people — including students — use YouTube to learn new skills, supplement their schoolwork and gain expertise. Now, the company’s leaders are hoping that a new initiative will greatly expand YouTube’s educational applications.

Announced by CEO Susan Wojcicki in a recent blog post , YouTube Learning will provide grants and promotion for education-focused content, expert organizations and learners. The initiative also includes free wellness courses for content creators that address “burnout” and mental health.

“Our hope is to support those who use YouTube to share their knowledge with the world and the millions of users who come to our platform to learn,” said Wojcicki.

Wojcicki also announced that YouTube will be expanding its learning content team efforts, and has dedicated a product and engineering team to build out additional learning features within the platform that have yet to be announced.

The creation of YouTube Learning comes after the company faced criticism last year for allowing inappropriate and graphic content to slip past the platform’s filters and be recommended to young viewers. The website has also come under fire recently for favoring, through its algorithm, negative videos of public education and unintentionally promoting conspiracy theories and false information.